Nancy Fraser is our Online Marketing Consultant and the owner of Nota Bene Consulting .

Each month I write an ezine with one main article. One of these articles was picked up by an ezine publisher who sends to over 750,000 subscribers each week. The same thing could happen to you…but only if you get started.

Some of you find the prospect of writing one article a month too much to face. You may justify not writing the article by rationalizing that your list is so small it can’t bring you much business, if any at all.

Here are 4 reasons why you should start your ezine today

• To test your messages and see what prospects are interested in.
• To be remembered by clients and prospects when they need your products or services.
• To attract new subscribers who are prospects.
• To save time. Each article allows you to repurpose and use it for a variety of marketing methods.

One article, many formats:

1. Take the main point of the article and write a Press Release around your perspective on it and send to your list of media contacts and post online or to just post online. There are many free sites for press release distribution, through www.pressexposure.com, www.newswiretoday.com/, www.prleap.com or use the paid service at www.prweb.com where the will also help you with writing the release if you have a problem making it sound news worthy.
2. Post the article on any of the hundreds of online article sites. This can be a time consuming process so you want to make sure that the ones you are posting on are worth your time. Download the Google toolbar and check to see the page rank of the sites you are considering. Post on those with a PR 3 or higher. Set up an excel spreadsheet to keep track of where you post, the article titles and the dates you post on. Within a maximum of 30 days you should be able to look at your traffic statistics and see which sites are referring readers to your site. Those sites that refer the most traffic are the ones to focus your article marketing efforts on. See a list of article sites at www.notabenemarketing.com/article-sites
3. Record the article using a free program at www.audacity.com . You use a headset plugged into your computer to record and change it into an MP3 file using the instructions on the site. You can put the MP3 file on your website for those who like to hear rather than read information.
4. Use your recorded article as a podcast hosting it on a service like www.libsyn.com where you can also upload a pdf of the article.
5. Add your postcast link and pdf on a free account you set up on iTunes
6. Form alliances with other similar businesses and exchange articles with them, including a live link to your site in the article.

   One article can go a long way in supporting your marketing efforts without a huge commitment of your time. Set up a system and follow it each month.

   And how did I get my article sent to over 750,000 ezine subscribers? I created a title that included good keywords. The article offered solutions for a problem many of the subscribers are frustrated by. I posted on many online article sites and someone with a huge list who is always looking for good fresh content asked if they could use the article.

   Try if for the next few months and email me to share your success!